I have finished knitting the boylandknitworks Willowwood
pullover in Woolfolk Far yarn. The combination of design and
yarn was absolutely scrumptious! I immediately became obsessed with the design when I saw the Pom Pom magazine because I feel it captures the drama and exhuberance of Victorian style but the cropped shape keeps it modern too!
The whole theme of the woman warrior with Victorian style in Pom Pom Quarterly 27 is just fabulous. Too often strong women are portrayed as hard-edged but the designs are so sumptuous and elegant!
Nightingale by Nora Gaughn
I have my eyes on the above design, Nightingale, as well. What a genius idea to create a suit of armor out of woolen cables! And the design uses an American made yarn, Quince & Co Lark, which I’ve been interested in trying. The other reason I am so obsessed with these Pom Pom designs is I’ve been reading some wonderful literature lately about strong Victorian women. Deanna Raybourn’s series that features a fearless Victorian female butterfly hunter and explorer, “A Curious Beginning” is just as sumptuous and well-fashioned as the Pom Pom knit collection.
The heroine Veronica Speedwell (Speedwell being the scientific name of a cornflower) is a blue-eyed warrior who will stop at nothing to capture the butterflies that take her fancy or the villains that threaten people she loves. It is so refreshing to read a thriller romance series in which a wounded hero is the retiring, beautiful character who must be ultimately stalked and trapped by an adventurous, world-traveled heroine.
Willowwood neck detail
Deanna Raybourn has been a bit of a muse for me of late, and her incredibly intelligent and entertaining interview in this podcast informed me about the intrepid Victorian woman explorers that Raybourn modeled Veronica Speedwell after. So knitting this pullover was mandatory for me, as it brings me one step closer to the marvelous world of adventure and thrilling scientific pursuits that Veronica Speedwell and the explorer Stoker inhabit.
I had the wonderful opportunity to try on a sample of Willowwood at Stitches West which resolved me to knit a more fitted version for myself. Although the second size of the pattern fit me rather well, it was quite wide at the bust which made my chest look simply enormous. For those of us who are on the busty side, I feel it is really important to pay attention to this area of a sweater. I altered the pattern accordingly by casting on only 160 stitches to define my waist and then I added in an additional 10 stitches every inch until I reached the armhole, at which point I’d reached the recommended 220 stitches. This created a gradual widening of the sweater so that there was NO wide swath of fabric hanging from the armhole to the waist, which had seemed to triple the actual dimensions of the chest area.
I also made the sweater more fitted by knitting the body on a size 7 cubix needle which tends to create a tight gauge instead of a size 8 needle as the pattern required. I only switched up to size 8 for the stranded sections of the pullover and sleeves. Otherwise, I knitted the pattern exactly as written and it fitted just as I wanted it to! I am planning to sew a dress to go with this pullover but I’m going to have to find a dress pattern with a lot of waist definition. The dress pattern I tried was too high-waisted for me to wear with a cropped cardigan and has become a house dress instead:
Between the cropped high waisted top and the high waisted dress, my waist seemed to disappear. I'll try to post a photo next time to show you what I mean. So I’m going to try the Dahlia dress by Colette patterns instead: